


Jagged Edges

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan), repentantheroes (MissMadWorld)



Series: Claimed [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Claimed AU, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Wounded Ed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMadWorld/pseuds/repentantheroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed has returned from his travels and hesitantly taken up Maes Hughes old post in investigations at Brigadier General Mustang's insistence. A routine check on military property goes very wrong and sets Edward and Roy on a hunt for answers. Reluctantly, they travel together down a path of danger and personal transmutation that there's no turning back from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to a joint project that is well over 2 years in the making! This is part one of many in the Claimed universe. We're proud to finally start posting this after so much plotting and fighting with the muses. We hope you enjoy!
> 
> Come visit us on tumblr!  
> aurumdalseni.tumblr.com  
> repentantheroes.tumblr.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come visit us on tumblr!

It was a terrible place for a fight.

Clanking machines, conveyor belts hitching along with their cruel goods, tattered pallets with cracked edges stacked high. His routine compliance check at the weapons facility was so rudely interrupted by unexpected guests, black clad and so suspiciously cliche, he would have laughed if he hadn’t suddenly been fighting for his life. It would have been so much easier out in the open, a better chance he could have alerted nearby MPs too. But no, he was stuck with someone constantly getting between him and any of the exits. He had tricked himself into thinking it was just his imagination that the bodies to fight seemed endless. This way and that, between machines, knocking into stacks, throwing people into walls and moving on to the next surge. Barrels toppled, spilling slick oils to the floor. More than once, his heavy military boots lost traction in the pools, sending him skidding. If he weren’t back on his feet and fighting seconds later, he might have joked to no one in particular about the lucky strike his last fall had made, taking out a pile of boxes with his whole body in an impressive crash.

They were relentless, but Ed wanted to think he was holding his own. He ached, and it got increasingly difficult to breathe, a sharp pressure in his ribs getting more intense every time he got back up. But they were still going down, and by hell, he wasn’t going to stop until they--

Ed let out a yelp as he hit a machine; burly hands pushing him down. He could hear the high-pitched whine of the moving parts, metal vibrating against his spine, jarring him all the way down to the ports in his left leg. “Fuck” he gasped, struggling against the grip on his body. His hands scrabbled to find purchase, his legs trying to find the room to kick. He knew he was too late when his world went hot-white, like someone had lit a fire against his back. Hot, sticky wet, some of the whining machinery was muffled by his own flesh. His eyes went blank, breath stuttering in his chest. He didn’t remember kicking back, automail foot slamming into his attacker’s chest, but it happened and he fell to the floor. “Fuck. Fuuuuck.” His vision slowly came back in a blur, and he looked over his shoulder to see a table saw, now stained red and smeared with oil. Fuzzy shadows moved around him, surrounding him.  _ Get up. Get. Up. You’re not done. _

Ed barreled forward and fought for his life.

…

It was a terrible place for a fight.

This fact was slightly embarrassing considering the building was military property, but in fairness the building was  _ military property;  _ it would take serious balls for anyone to consider having a go at it. That said, even from the outside it had obviously been a tactical nightmare. Few exits, few windows that might be made into emergency exits, and for fuck’s sake, even if Ed could find a place to hide between the dangerous bits of machinery, Roy knew him better than to think he ever would while he still had strength enough to stand and fight. Mighty engines churned in the belly of the building, dark and sharp and everywhere great iron gears rattled and chewed, ready to gnaw at any passing coattail. Even those familiar with the intricate network of paths left between these instruments of industry would do well to keep their wits about them in a labyrinth like this, where the walls themselves would bite given half a chance. The military built weapons of war here, but in this light the tools of their enterprise looked an awful lot like weapons themselves.

Still, Roy moved as quickly as he dared and perhaps a little faster than was wise. Skilled in combat though Edward may have been, a body could only hold out for so long and Roy was not about to leave any subordinate of his without backup any longer than could be helped, especially outnumbered like this.

At least, Roy thought, if Ed couldn’t escape the horde coming for him, they couldn’t escape Ed either.

Bodies littered the ground around nearly every corner, heaving through the stress of collapsed lungs and pinned under crates toppled and left in heaps like matchstick castles in Ed’s calamitous wake. He had been using tight corners to his advantage, forcing bottlenecks by blocking aisles so that only one or two could catch up to him at a time. Good.

Roy hesitated as he slid between two open crates. One held neat rows of standard issue .45 caliber semi-automatic pistols. He knew their weight, the shape of their grips in intimate detail. One just like them was snug at the small of his back even now, its leather holster still stiff from having been opened so infrequently. In the other crate was something he had never seen before, even in blueprint. Surely any contract for new artillery wouldn’t have escaped his notice--

Ed’s voice ricocheted off the ceiling from somewhere to the left or--god damn the echo of this place, it had Roy turning a frustrated circle, searching for the most direct path toward the commotion of combat. The negative space left in a pool of machine oil by the skidding momentum of uneven shoulders across the concrete pointed Roy toward scrabbling oily-red boot prints where Ed had regained his footing, still pursued by...three more, from the look of things.

Two were already on the ground when Roy finally found him, and the last was sinking to his knees at Ed’s feet.  A few slanting red rays of evening sunlight had managed to claw their way in along the rafters to cut across Ed’s profile, sharp as bloody glass. His visage was that of a feral animal: cornered, wounded, and still tensed to take another blow.

Roy only missed the wild swing of Ed’s incoming haymaker by a stroke of bittersweet luck; he’d be nursing a broken nose if Edward’s muscles were any less exhausted. It was Roy’s instinct to slide in under Ed’s arm and take his weary weight, but the boy was already correcting the slip in his stance to try and connect again and after all he’d been through, could Roy blame him?

“Edward.” Roy’s voice was clear and firm, but without any hint of reprimand. He called, and it was left to Ed to do the coming back.

…

_ Too close, too fucking close, how many fucking more of them can there be? _ Ed pivoted, putting more weight on his good leg, Arguably that could have been either one since both were having trouble holding him up. Not that Ed was willing to admit any of that, and certainly not to the guy he just threw a punch at  _ and fucking missed _ . He staggered to the side with the unexpected momentum, and the tread on his boots makes a piercing squeak on wet concrete. At least he wasn’t on his ass; that was a plus. He was drawing back for another go at it when he realized his opponent was just standing there. He squinted, trying to bring things back into focus. Before, he hadn’t been trying to look at faces, only punch them. This one was familiar, stricken with more pain and surprise than Ed’s guilt complex would have preferred.

“Edward.”

The sound of his name did it, brought the reality home, and when he blinked his mind finally caught up and registered Mustang’s face. His hand dropped dumbly to his side, his body half sagged under his own weight. When it was clear Ed wasn’t going to lay him out, Roy actually reached for him. He didn’t feel a thing, and the adrenaline was starting to ooze out of him, dripping with all the other wet things to hit the floor. He wants to go down with it, his knees threatening to give out, but it would be a goddamn nuisance to drop in front of Roy. Bastard general probably wouldn’t let him live it down. “The fuck-”

Mustang must have seen something, felt something, because he withdrew his hand almost as readily as he’d offered it, and Roy’s skin was bright red along his knuckles. Now they matched, and Ed’s laughter was thick, wet. “What’re y’doin’ here?” He didn’t remember calling for help; he didn’t really remember much of anything right now. Only the most immediate reminders of the fight, all the aches and pains that crept in on his awareness with jagged edges the longer he focused on them. He tried to stop, but once he started, it was nearly impossible.

“Apparently I’m the clean up crew,” Roy said bitterly, “now sit down.” He didn’t hesitate this time, reaching out to brace Ed’s elbow, coaxing him the few steps over to one of the workbenches. There was something forced about the way Roy tried to maintain the status quo, giving the order with all the arrogance due his station in spite of the circumstances.

…

“Finally found y’callin, Mustang.” Ed tried to laugh and it came out too close like a cough for his comfort. He let Roy move him, thinking that if there was anyone left, Roy could handle it. Sitting was better than falling, and he had done enough damn work staying up to fight. When he sank down, more red spattered to the floor below the bench. “‘n fact, y’just clean up this mess-” he waved his hand in a sloppy, all-encompassing gesture that meant his whole battle ground “-and I’m gonna wait right here.” He put his hands down on the bench and started to lower himself so he could lie down. With the edges of his vision already black, rest calling so sweetly to him, surely by the time he woke up, Roy would have worked his magic and had everything taken care of. He was useful like that.

And Ed was so very tired.

…

Roy hadn’t been expecting the heavy-warm splat of wet that smacked into and oozed down the back of his hand when he had placed his palm on the small of Edward’s back to guide him down to the bench. He seized up, dumbstruck, eyes wide and fixed on the floor in front of them for a moment while he came to terms with what that must have been. He finally lifts his hand away and of course it’s stained and now not just smeared but dripping with the inky red of Edward’s blood.

“God  _ dammit,”  _ he breathed, low and dark. The idle whir of machines surrounded them, ugly white noise that seemed suddenly so much louder beneath the staccato of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The din made it difficult to focus on a next step and he wanted, suddenly, to burn the place and all its churning engines to the ground just to get it to stop so he could  _ think. _

Ed trying to lay his battle-worn body out without seeming to notice that Roy was in the way pushed Roy back into action; he couldn’t let Ed stay here and expect him to make it. He stopped Edward from slumping over into his lap with a firm hand on his shoulder and did his best to suppress a sympathetic wince when the boy whined at the touch.

“We can’t wait for backup. Load up, Fullmetal.”

Roy kept a hand on Edward’s limp arm to brace him as he knelt into the blood and ink-soaked industrial grit at his subordinate’s feet before tugging enough to topple Ed's weight forward onto his own back. An awkward moment of situating Ed's thighs around his waist, then he pushed up and in spite of the protestations of his lower back he felt sturdy enough to move. As he made his way out, Ed slung over his shoulders in a limp piggy back, he didn’t spare even a glance for the prone forms of the presumed thieves Edward had left littered around the compound. Most of them were probably breathing, and the team would be there to collect them with ambulances eventually anyway. For the time being, getting Edward out without tripping over one of them was his only priority.

"Y'don't...can walk y'know. Y'told me t'sit." Of course the brat would still insist that he could do it all himself, even as he was fucking bleeding out--

“Yeah, yeah, the dumb bastard’s Plan A went out the window,” Roy calls over his shoulder, hoping that their familiar banter might keep Edward awake, or at least mask the dread riding high in his own throat. “You can bitch about Plan B once we’re out of this hellhole.”

“Roy…” Roy swallowed hard. In one syllable Roy could suddenly hear  _ fear _ in Ed’s voice, grown so much quieter so fast, little more than a tired whisper against his ear. The implication that he was fading had Roy picking up his pace through the labyrinth and back toward the exit.

"I hear you, Ed. You’re going to be okay.”  _ Please be okay.  _ “Just stay awake.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No recovery time will ever be fast enough for Edward Elric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Squeaking this in under the wire for Aurum's birthday -- what better way to celebrate than an update to the fave AU. Hope you enjoy!

“Stop. It.” Al had told his brother to hold still he didn't know how many times at this point. The doctors had insisted that limiting movement and lying on his belly instead of his back would stop Ed aggravating the wound or pulling the stitches running in their not-quite-straight lines beside his spine, but then the doctors had said a lot of things that Ed had ignored. They told him that another day in the hospital to monitor for infection was absolutely crucial in their combined opinion, but Ed had already signed the release form that said, “yes, yes. I, the undersigned idiot, accept responsibility for any complication that may arise from disregarding the professional advice of trained physicians, thank you now where’s the door.” 

Al found himself as frustrated as the hospital staff. He firmly believed that tenderness and a little spoiling were integral to the healing process after such a traumatic incident, but was beginning to find it difficult to keep his scolding gentle. 

Ed was stubbornly sitting up and craning his neck to try to see over his own shoulder to his lattice of stitches. 

“You already  _ know  _ you can't see them, for goodness sake,” Al snapped, shoving Ed’s shoulder before turning to collect the plates from their shared lunch. “Anyway brother, there’ll be nothing to look at if you rip the damn things out so--” Ed was already interrupting him by lifting his arm and peering under, like he could somehow see around the curvature of his own ribs to the wound, “are you even listening??”

Ed  _ sighed _ and put his arm back down, flashing Al an irritating grin that said it all. “Of course ‘m listening to you, Al. You’ve been fussin’ at me for the last ten minutes. But y’gotta admit that over sixty stitches is pretty damn impressive, even for me. ‘Spose I could look in the mirror or somethin’, but  _ someone _ won’t let me get off this couch.”

“ _ Impressive,”  _ Al breathed incredulously. A dimple softened his sideways little frown (an effect he didn't so much mind when it amplified his puppy-dog pout to get him what he wanted, but loathed when it undermined his serious edge in moments like these). “I think we’d all be more impressed if you could come away from a mission with  _ zero  _ stitches at this point.” 

“Anyway,  _ Someone  _ has to make sure you don't split open at the seam, so on the couch you’ll darn well stay, brother.” A short, sharp rapping came at the door just as he turned to punctuate his order with a quick jab of his finger into Ed’s chest. “ _ Stay.” _

He tried to school his features into an expression a little less irked as he opened the door, but he could  _ feel  _ Ed moving behind him to get a look at their visitor. As the door swept aside to reveal Brigadier-General Mustang, Al knew his vexation was clear on his face in the twitching of his eyebrow. 

“Brigadier-General,” Al sighed by way of greeting, the source of his tension obviously behind him based on the slope of his shoulders. 

“Mustang’s here?” Ed’s voice piped up from behind Al. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost say Ed was happy to know Roy had come to see them. Which was strange when one considered how much they argued when they were in the same room together. “C’mon in! I’d get up and let y’in myself, but I’ve been grounded to the sofa. Al seems to think this is good for my health. Did you bring me anything?”

Ed beamed over at them both from where he sat shirtless and all of his hair pinned up off his back. He had his teeth showing and everything, the grin of a little kid, but the moment he could see Roy’s face over Al’s shoulder, he locked gazes and wouldn’t turn away. He leaned forward a little bit, only a twitch at the corner of his mouth showing that the movement pinched at his skin where the stitches were. But his discomfort wasn’t with the wound. He wanted answers.

“I take it he’s being as difficult as ever, then?” Roy asked Alphonse, pointedly ignoring Ed even as they stared each other down. 

“Same as he ever was,” Al shrugged his affection for his brother as he gestured Roy inside. Roy approached Ed with the taunting gate of an inquisitor, pulling his gloves off one at a time. 

“I expected to find you in the hospital, Fullmetal,” Roy accused in a tone that said he already knew what to expect from Edward’s defense. From his pocket he produced a packet of ginger candies (good for soothing nausea, which wasn't quite the same as a traumatic laceration and massive blood-loss, but he supposed the sentiment of a healing sweet would carry over) and tossed it into Ed’s lap with a manufactured carelessness. Even on pain of death he would not admit to having been the first in the office to sign the attached “get well,” card. 

Only when Ed looked down to collect them did Roy chance a look at the stitches lacing Ed together like crooked corset strings.

“That was your first mistake, Mustang,” Ed replied without missing a beat. “You’ve known me for years, and there are few things I hate more than hospitals. Besides, once the stitches were in, I really didn’t  _ need _ to stay. I just would have done the same things I’m doing here. Sitting on my ass and getting glared at by my caretaker.” Another grin flashed at Al, this one a little bit more sympathetic; he knew he was a terrible patient and it was clear in his expression. 

_ No,  _ Roy thought grimly.  _ My first mistake was deciding too late to bother you with backup.  _ It took a moment for Roy to refocus and remind himself that  _ he  _ hadn't actually been the one to back Edward into that saw blade. He hid his moment of pause gracefully between a gesture asking Al for permission to sit and the smoothing of a wrinkle from his uniform once he had made himself comfortable. The boys didn't seem to notice, too busy apologizing and forgiving one another without so much as a word spoken between them. 

Ed ran his fingertips along the edge of the card accompanying the candies, features softening just a bit more. To him, this was definitely better than flowers, and Roy’s team never missed the opportunity to play the world’s most dysfunctional family. Without much ceremony, he opened the package and popped one of the ginger sweets in his mouth, making a pleased sound. He rolled it around on his tongue for another moment before finally looking back up at Roy, the intensity back in his gaze.

“So, anyone talk yet?”

“Not a word so far, but we’re working on them,” Roy said forcing confidence. “There are fewer suspects in custody than there ought to have been, though. Somehow in the time between hauling you out of there and the arrival of active military personnel on scene, twelve of the fifteen perpetrators I counted had either escaped or, more likely based on the drag marks, been removed from the premises.”

“What?” Ed hissed.

Al tensed visibly. “There were more of them.” It wasn't a question. “Enough to start getting their team out of there before they could be apprehended.”

Roy nodded. “I have no doubt that those left behind weren't abandoned by choice. There would have been nothing and no one left if our guys had arrived any later than they did.”

Ed’s fingers drummed against his knee in blatant discontent. He had worked very hard to take down those thieves. Losing all but a few of them because of his injuries was a bitter pill to swallow. His brow furrowed in anger, famous Fullmetal temper running hot in his veins. The only thing tempering it was how quickly his mind was working to process the details. “Pretty gutsy, trying to steal from a facility on military property, don’t you think? Luckily, I was doing the rounds at the wrong time for them, but I’ve been doing this dog of the military song and dance long enough to know that standard issue weapons are just as easy to get from border towns and disgruntled territories as Central Command. Probably a hell of a lot more so. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Roy allowed an approving, ‘atta-boy’ sort of smile.    
  
“Your instinct is dead on with that one. Based on what else we found in the follow-up investigation the initial assumption that this was a smash-and-grab robbery has all but gone out the window, in my opinion. Though it might be more accurate to say that what we  _ didn’t  _ find was what gave it away.” His voice grumbled to a halt, revealing his frustration with the unexpected turn that evening had taken.    
  
“I don’t know if you’d have had time to notice considering you were under attack from the moment you arrived, but there were weapons being manufactured in that facility that were decidedly  _ not  _ regulation issue. Gatling guns on a scale I’ve never seen, and a grenade launcher that I know for a fact was denied military approval for production.” Roy paused, his lips pressing into a grim line.

“Whether you recognized them as unfamiliar or not, the point is this: you and I were the only two who saw the unauthorized weapons being built in that facility. I might’ve hesitated and assumed I had just missed a production update, but by the time I returned to the scene everything that didn’t have an official stamp of military approval had been removed with the bodies.” He raised his eyebrows, indicating the obvious conclusion.

“They were defending their secret, not a heist,” Al realized, rubbing tension out of his eye.

Ed dragged a hand through his bangs, brows furrowed while he tried to remember. Everything had become such a blur so quickly. He hadn’t even gotten past his first quality check at the main gate before dark-clad men were streaming in and ready to fight. Admittedly, the most he could do was back up Roy’s claim that there was more product on the floor than usual. Crates with blueprints stapled to them, more metal and more skids of ammunition. For a production facility needing to operate at the highest levels of safety, it was too cramped and overstuffed with things that didn’t belong there. A problem their anonymous attackers had so conveniently solved for them, but left a slew of unanswered questions in their wake. Ed  _ hated _ loose ends.

The point at which he’d been thrown on the saw had put everything in a blurry tailspin, all of his memories from then on tinted red and only there because of stubborn adrenaline and will. To try and extract specifics would be nearly impossible, and he didn’t care for that either. If Roy hadn’t shown up when he had…

“So we have one of two problems,” he said, at first through clenched teeth before he relaxed his jaw. “Either someone is orchestrating the use of military property in off hours and under our noses or someone on the inside is letting these guys in to run their shady non-regulation operation.”

“Either way there has to be someone on the inside,” Al mused. “There has to be someone protecting them, otherwise there’s no way they’d have gotten so far in production without anyone noticing.”

“And neither of those is gonna bode very well for us, especially if any of this breaks public. Even worse, if some weapons show up in, say Aerugo -- who isn’t very happy with us right now  _ just sayin’ _ \-- with our stamp on them, we’re fucked. I’m not sayin’ we stoop too low to get answers, but we’ve gotta make those guys we  _ did  _ get ahold of talk. And soon.”

“Agreed,” Roy crossed his arms definitively. “I’ve had Havoc and Braeda working on them for the past two days. If their schtick isn't enough to annoy answers out of them while we’ve been taking stock, the second run is a good cop, bad cop routine,” he lead, already anticipating some resistance from younger brother. 

“I hoped that my head of investigations would be up to playing Bad Cop.” Roy put his hands up defensively before Al could protest. “Only once he has the go-ahead from the doctor, of course. They can stew in lock-up until then.” He turned and fixed Ed with a challenging stare. 

“You shouldn't have too much trouble making them believe you’d skirt the rules of interrogation to get answers, considering they nearly shredded you.”

Ed tilted his head, intentionally ignoring any pointed looks Al might have been giving him. “Forget the go-ahead from the doctor. Every day we lose getting answers, those bastards get farther away. We’re losin’ time. Get me in there tomorrow.” He had a smirk on his face; the gears were already turning.

“Like. I said. Before,” Roy insisted, punctuating between words with the progressive narrowing of his eyes, “only when you’re cleared by the doctors.” He nodded acknowledgement to Al, who crossed his arms in smug agreement. 

“You won't be nearly so intimidating if you rip your stitches and pass out, brother.” 

“Anyway it’ll only be a couple more days, I’m sure you’ll find some way to entertain yourself until then.”

Very slowly, Ed crossed his arms, his eyes narrowed and the amusement fading from his eyes. “I’m not going to rip my stitches out talking to someone, okay? Do you see me right this minute? I’m talking to you, very politely not punching you in the face for being a roadblock, and my stitches are just. Fine.”

“Be that as it may, I still outrank you, which means I am still the boss of you. And  _ he, _ ” Roy thumbed toward Al, “is  _ definitely  _ also sort of the boss of you, so get comfy, kid.” Al hid a sweet little snort of a laugh behind his hand and Roy’s eyes twinkled.

Ed’s cheeks stained red a little bit, but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine.  _ Sir _ . I’ll get a doctor’s note so I can come back to work and take care of this mess. Okay?” He looked between Roy and Al. “Is that okay with both of you?”

“Good boy,” Roy ribbed in response to Ed’s pointed honorific. He did offer a sincere nod of approval and even allowed himself a relieved huff. 

“Listen, Ed, we’re obviously a stronger unit when everyone is in sound physical condition and frankly, my gut says we’re gonna need any edge we can get with this one,” he said grimly. “Taking care of yourself  _ is  _ taking care of the case.” It seemed like a good moment to lay a reassuring hand on Ed’s shoulder. Instead, he shifted in his seat and slid smoothly into the next topic. 

“Besides, we’ll be working on the suspects until you’re on your feet again. With any luck we’ll have some answers before Al has even let you off the sofa.” 

~*~ 

He was doomed to go stir-crazy in the apartment after the first day, losing his mind while he paced from room to room. No book was safe from him as he continued his path of destruction. He soaked up the words from all their library plunders, reread their old collection, left no tome untouched. He wandered from room to room, and every book was his victim until the dark hours of the morning.

He should have stopped reading the one on Al’s desk the minute he realized what it was. Should have stopped dragging his eyes along the text and shut the book. Should have told Al he was too young to be reading it. But no, he gave a glance over his shoulder as if his baby brother would appear and scold  _ him _ instead. The room was silent, the reading light dim. Al was out running their errands -- Ed had lost the fight to try and go with him. Again -- , leaving Ed alone with words that made his heart race and his breath catch. He brushed his fingertips over the text, snuck the book away to his room. He read the entire thing in one night and, in the morning, he was hungry for more.

The next day, doctor’s orders be damned, he left the apartment after Al did and visited his favorite secondhand store. He looked at everything else but the clerk as she rang up his purchases, and she still gave him a pleasant smile as she handed him the bag and his change. It took him two and a half days to get through all of them, and Al might have throttled him if he ever found out just how much Edward  _ wasn’t _ resting while he was gone. Under his brother’s nose, he acquired one more thing: a new leather bound journal with suede cords and beautiful embossed scrollwork on the front. He spent minutes stroking the thick paper of the pages, twirled his pen between his fingers as if he’d change his mind at any given moment. Finally, he put ink to it, and how ridiculously simple it was to dump summarized alchemic theories and beginners notes into the first several pages. It would have to be a clever enough cover because he was too anxious to put more effort into the disguise. His mind was racing, and he started writing on fresh, clean pages. His soul tumbled out of him in words.


End file.
